On Thursday, documentary filmmaker RaMell Ross scored his first feature film nomination—Ross was previously nominated in 2018 for his documentary film Hale County This Morning, This Evening—for Nickel Boys in Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture. The historical drama, based on Colson Whitehead’s book of the same name, chronicles the deep friendship between two teenagers (Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson) who have to overcome the shocking brutality and horrific discriminatory regulations of a Florida reform school in the Jim Crow South.
Below, Deadline talks to Ross about his nomination and the making of the film.
DEADLINE: Where were you when you found out that you received your nominations?
RAMELL ROSS: You know, people say [it’s just] me, but there are a lot of people who helped with this film. We have a huge team that has been out there hitting the pavement for Nickel Boys. However, I was on my couch in my studio under the covers [laughs]. I had some popcorn and a blue Gatorade watching through squinted eyes.
DEADLINE: You’ve been nominated for an Oscar in the documentary space before but now it’s for your first feature film. How are you processing this?
ROSS: I am unsure how to feel.The process of moviemaking [and campaigning] is so long. We’re still in the process of sharing the film, and so it kind of is like, “Oh my God.” We just hit this milestone where now we’re going to have this story about the Dozier School for Boys shared with millions of more people. So it’s affirming.
DEADLINE: Thinking about the Nickel Boys nomination in Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture, is there a scene that you thought wouldn’t initially work while filming, but ultimately resonated with you in the final cut?
ROSS: Let me turn that question around and say, I think I underestimated. The thing about Nickel Boys is its a film that is more intelligent than its maker. Making art in which you’re learning is something I always strive towards. It was this idea of having this epic banal imagery point of view of how it’s going to be shot. How these images are going to be and how it’s going to emerge from the imagined sentient perspective of the Dozier school boys. And then it’s going to have archival footage and montages. But you don’t quite know the power of it when everything is aligned and speaking to each other because how could you? And so I think it’s more about sticking to a lot of the rules of the film and then the process of being taught and humbled by the way in which the things cohere.
DEADLINE: What do you think people are responding to when they watch this film?
ROSS: I think people are responding to the adventure of complexity and the adventure of the vicarious, the being asked to think alongside the film.
DEADLINE: For those who are headed into watching this for the first time or rewatching, what would you like them to think about?
ROSS: I love this phrase called “experiential monument.” What is an experiential monument? It’s like a type of history that is experiential, that it’s cellular, where you’re relating to someone’s story and to someone’s life in a way that can’t be taken away from you. It’s not something that is didactic. It’s something that you feel and absorb. And I think with that people maybe smirk and bite their thumb towards those who are erasing histories and the gesture of elevating the story to the annals of cinema while histories are being erased, not allowing it to be erased. Also, it’s about kids who,unfortunately, are murdered and buried and we’re excavating that entire history and then putting it in a place where it can’t be forgotten or erased. And it just makes me smirk.
DEADLINE: Have you ever heard from anybody in the Florida realm of the school district or governmental agencies in response to the release of Nickel Boys?
ROSS:No. I was just at Dozier last week and walked around the grounds. I’ve spoken with a couple of former students, but have yet to hear anything from government officials or anyone from the community per se. There have been people from the larger Northern Florida community coming to screenings in various places and mentioning that they were familiar with the story beforehand, et cetera. But, nothing else.
DEADLINE: What’s next for you?
ROSS: I’m a slow worker. I’m really looking forward to resuming normal life [laughs]. My only upcoming preparation for the Oscars ceremony is prayer.
The 97th Oscars ceremony, hosted by Conan O’Brien, will take place March 2 at 4 p.m. PT/ 7 p.m. ET at the Dolby Theatre.
